


I Can't Stop Thinking About You

by elf_punk



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:06:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27439297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elf_punk/pseuds/elf_punk
Summary: You and Fred have been friends for years, but your inclinations towards one another change as the two of you enter your sixth year. It should all be so simple, but Fred reacts to his feelings badly and it threatens your whole relationship.
Relationships: Fred Weasley/Original Female Character(s), Fred Weasley/Reader, Fred Weasley/You
Comments: 5
Kudos: 81





	I Can't Stop Thinking About You

Once again, you and Fred were having a blazing row. George sat in the corner of the common room with his head in his hands, and Lee Jordan picked at his sleeve nearby. The Quidditch team were in a huddle near the portrait hole and appeared to be keeping a distance, as if cowering from an explosion. 

“Again, you’ve missed the bloody point,” Fred hissed at you, taking a step towards you. You did not flinch. A smile tugged at your lips and you simply sneered at him.

“And what would the point be then? Do enlighten us.”

“That it was a joke! That you shouldn’t take everything George and I do so personally and just-,” Fred struggled with his words, and you raised an eyebrow as if goading him to continue. “You should just stop being so sensitive!”

Immediately, George’s eyes snapped up and eyed Fred with a look that could only be interpreted as “ _you fucked up_.”

You were silent. Fred swallowed thickly. When you spoke, your voice was low and dangerous; words tumbled from your lips like silk and you made sure to look Fred straight in the eye.

“Your dumbfuck prank ruins an Arithmancy essay I spent three days on, and you have the audacity to call me sensitive? Are you actually kidding me? I knew you were a dunce when it came to anything unrelated to Zonko’s products, but I didn’t-”

“Shut up!” Fred suddenly hissed, making you jump. You had evidently touched a nerve “You don’t know anything - thinking you’re smarter than me like you always do. You don’t understand- you’re just…”

But he could not find the words with which to finish his sentence. 

“What am I, Fred?” 

“Not my friend, for sure!” he bellowed. This silenced you. You stood, lips parted for a moment while you collected yourself. 

“Fine by me,” you spat, turning on your heel and stalking towards your room as the tears began to fall. 

You had no idea how things had gotten this bad. It felt like just yesterday that you were at the Quidditch World Cup with his family and at the receiving end of Ginny’s constant jokes about your dubious relationship; you cast your eyes back to the night he’d had a firewhisky too many and awkwardly called you beautiful. He’d sort of… shouted it at you and while you were very alarmed, the comment was by no means unwelcome. You loved him, and had done since the beginning of your third year. It was likely he felt the same, but whether he realised this fact was debatable. You could hardly describe Fred as the cerebral type. 

It was as though the feelings between the two of you had reached a crescendo at the start of the school year; only for it to flatten in a sickeningly painful way. Fred started becoming shorter with you. He didn’t call for you after feasts like he usually did. He started spending more time with his Quidditch mates and less time with you, and you were powerless to stop it. Any attempts at confronting him were met with mumbled excuses and the sudden need to “meet George and Lee.” George had been similarly distant, and the only person who seemed to stick by you was Lee, your best friend.

“Has he seriously not mentioned anything to you?” You implored, searching Lee’s eyes for any trace of hope. Lee just sighed sadly.

“Nah, sorry pumpkin.” He laughed as you cringed at the nickname. “Like, occasionally I’ll see him and George talking about something all hushed up, but I never manage to get close enough to figure out what they’re muttering about. I’ll keep trying though.”

The following months were miserable. Fred ended up asking Angelina to the ball, and the two subsequently became a couple. A small- scratch that, immense part of you hoped that it would be a fling that fizzled out over Christmas, but when you returned to school in January to the sight of them walking through the corridors hand-in-hand, your heart sank. The closer they became, the sadder you got and the more time you spent buried in the library, poring over Arithmancy books. The beautiful, intricate logic of numerology was enough to distract you momentarily, but it could never fill the dull ache in your chest. It had now been four months since you’d spoken to Fred, the person you loved more than anything in the world and things did not improve as the Easter break approached.

“Don’t look at them, look at me. Love is temporary, Bertie Bott’s every-flavoured beans are forever,” you heard Lee say as you wistfully watched Fred and Angelina converse intimately in the common room. Turning towards him, you smiled weakly and took a bean, before scrunching your face up in disgust and spitting it out at him.

“Ugh, what was that for you savage?” He laughed, flicking the bean away from him.

“For being a knob and giving me an earwax flavoured bean while I’m heartbroken,” you sighed dramatically. After a while, you shot off to bed, holding your head high and pretending to ignore the sight of Fred and Angelina in the corner of your eye. 

If you hadn’t turned when you did, you would have seen the glum, longing look that Fred shot at you as you left for bed. 

—

Easter at the Burrow didn’t have the fuzzy haze it usually did. Fred sat apart from his siblings, who were currently engaged in a cutthroat game of Quidditch on Stoatshead Hill. For the past two years, you had been a welcome addition to the Burrow for most holidays and it was now that Fred was realising how deep the hole in his chest, which had formed when your friendship ended, had become. The first few months had been easy; the Triwizard Tournament was a veritable source of excitement, as was his new relationship with Angelina, so passing his eyes over your spiteful glares was not difficult. But as the year slowed down, the time spent with Angelina began to feel less like a titillating excitement, and more like it always had done before the ball - mildly flirty, but fundamentally platonic. 

Fred was once more, pining after you the same way he always had, except this time, he was deprived of the flutter that formed in his heart every time he made you laugh. He couldn’t dash across the castle to pick you up after your classes had finished and whisk you off to the lake, where you would drink Butterbeer and poke the giant squid until the sun set. He couldn’t savour the sweet smell of your hair that invaded his nostrils every time you attacked him with a hug, or the sight of fireworks reflecting in your gleeful eyes. It was all a dream to Fred now; a fading memory. He hated the fact that he loved you so much. In that moment, Fred wondered whether it was possible to love someone so much that it made him sick and poisoned his heart, until all that was left was hatred.

“He’s thinking about her,” Ginny mused, watching Fred from a distance as she dismounted her broom. George looked over and frowned.

“Yeah, probably - he reckons she’s not as keen on him as she was when they went to the Ball.” 

Ginny blinked. 

“I’m not talking about Angelina, George” she spoke incredulously, as if amused at his ignorance. “I always knew they were better as friends. I’m talking about the person that he actually wants to be with.”

George was always stunned at how perceptive Ginny could be sometimes. Rolling her eyes, Ginny shoved past George with her broomstick in her arms and started towards the house, the remainder of the Weasleys following her. Once he was sure the rest of his siblings were out of earshot, George approached his twin who seemed too lost in his thoughts to notice everybody leaving. Taking a sigh, he prepared himself for what would inevitably be a terrible conversation. 

“Freddie, we need to talk about Y/N.”

Fred’s eyes snapped up to meet George’s and his shoulders stiffened.

“No we don’t,” he began curtly.

“Fred, stop being a twat!” George hissed, “she’s my friend too! You think I’ve enjoyed having to ghost her all over the castle? Just look at her! She’s been poring over Arithmancy books like it’s going out of style, barely spends any time in the common room and we’ve fucking abandoned her!”

“ _Abandoned_ her?” Fred snarled, suddenly exploding with anger. “Since when is she some sort of perfect angel that we need to watch over? You heard her the other night!” Fred’s voice went up by an octave and he puffed his chest out self-righteously, _“I knew you were a dunce when it came to anything unrelated to Zonko’s products!_ ” he mocked cruelly. “She’s a vicious prat!” 

“She was lashing out at you for being an immature prick, and ignoring her when you should have been getting closer!” George yelled, absolutely done with his brother’s immaturity. “I stuck by you at the beginning of the year, but this is just stupid! You love her, but instead of sucking it up and telling her, you’re acting like a kid and pulling on her pigtails! Besides, she wasn’t a vicious prat when she threw a tarantula at the Slytherins, or when she publicly roasted Davies after he cheated on Evelyn-”

“Fine!” Fred moaned, standing to his full height. “Fine! She’s it for me, are you happy? She’s the fucking air I breathe, her eyes make me feel like I’m in a children’s fairytale and every time she touches me, I feel like I want to explode!” He continued passionately, wringing his hands together and looking truly miserable. George just stared back at him.

“So why in the name of Merlin did you-”

“Because it’s terrifying, okay?” Fred spoke, less angrily than he had been a moment ago. “You’ve never felt it, you wouldn’t know- but knowing that someone has your heart on a string, feeling so much love that it burns you, is not a good feeling! Not for me! I- I want life to be fun, Georgie! Love isn’t fun, what I feel for Y/N isn’t fun, and I need to kill it!”

George sighed, peering at his brother carefully and contemplatively. 

“Fun is easy, bro. But sometimes easy isn’t right.”

—

The train lumbered into Hogsmeade Station and stilled to a stop. The entirety of the journey had consisted of Fred nervously toying with his bag strap and trying to decide on the right course of action for dealing with what Ginny had irritatingly started calling the “The Y/N Conundrum.” He’d managed to sort everything out with Angelina, and the two had amicably agreed that a friendship was better for them at the moment - Fred was wholly grateful for Angelina’s easygoing nature, but he still had a bigger hurdle to jump. 

The feast was uneventful; Fred had spotted a glimpse of you chatting animatedly with Lee about something or other, and he felt his mouth go dry. You were even prettier than you usually were; you’d done something with your hair - cut it again? Staring at you was easy, because you were so distracted. Fred suddenly longed for you to look over at him, meet his eyes with your own and share his yearning looks, but you did not. In a foul mood by the end of the feast, Fred very quickly excused himself from the table and bolted back to the Gryffindor common room.

As he left, you dropped the act and let your eyes rake over him sadly. 

—

“I broke up with Angelina.” Fred said rather abruptly after cornering you in the corridors a few days later. You narrowed your eyes, expecting him to continue. When he didn’t say anything else, you took it upon yourself to speak.

“Well, that’s too bad. I guess you can go back to just _verbally_ copulating now.” You said bitterly, and his cheeks flushed a patchy red, before he stormed off angrily; so angrily that he failed to notice a book slipping out of his bag and landing at your feet. You tried to call after him, but his head had disappeared in the ever-growing congregation of students in the corridor. Despite knowing better than to pine after Fred’s things, you picked up the book only to see that it contained several loose pieces of parchment, held together by a weak binding. You opened the book and began reading. The first piece of paper contained several crossed-out sentences written in Fred’s unmistakable scrawl- a script intelligible only to George, and apparently, you as well.

_Y/N,_

_~~I don’t even know what to say in this because we haven’t spoken in so long. I want you to know that you were a real prat that night in the common room, and~~ -_

You turned the page, feeling your heart practically fall out of your chest. More of the same bullshit. More struck through words, some cursing you and others expressing vague sadness that your friendship group had dissolved. Finally, when you were just about to throw the book back on the floor in anger, you reached the last page which revealed two single, uncrossed lines.

_Y/N,_

_You’re not a prat. You’re beautiful._

**_I can’t stop thinking about you._ **

Tears welled up in your eyes, which you stubbornly tried to hold back. Knowing you would curse yourself later, you bolted in the direction that Fred had marched off in only minutes earlier. You could barely see; you were shoving past people left right and centre, desperate to catch a glimpse of his fiery head towering above the sea of second and third years that had separated the two of you. Your mind had stopped processing sights, sounds and smells - it had stopped functioning rationally. All you could feel was a sickening urge to be with Fred right now, to be held by his strong frame and just breathe him in. 

“Fred!” You shouted shrilly, once you finally caught sight of his bright, red head and the crowd cleared. Reluctantly, he stopped, allowing you to catch up with him and face his furious glare. You were much too close; for the first time in almost six months, you could see the flecks of gold in his eyes that sparkled like the fireworks which had become synonymous with his name. You could only bear to let out a single sentence.

“I can’t stop thinking about you either.”

Your eyes filled with tears and you shoved his book into his hands and Fred felt his mouth go dry. In an instant, all the guilt he’d been repressing came flooding back, and he placed an iron grip on your arm, preventing you from running away.

“Let me go!” You wailed, utterly humiliated. But he didn’t. He pulled you through the corridors and into an empty classroom, the door of which he magicked shut. You were against the wall and Fred stood over you, his height forcing you to look up at his face which was no longer angry, but intense and passionate, the way it had looked the night he called you beautiful. 

You couldn’t help yourself. He was so close that you could feel the warmth of his breath, and before the logical side of your brain could protest, you were kissing him hard. He let out a short, muffled groan as one of his hands snaked around your waist while the other slammed against the wall behind you. The two of you stayed like this, alternating between kissing each other on the mouth and Fred placing frantic kisses all over your face; your cheeks, your forehead, the underside of your chin. You knew the two of you had to stop. You were in a classroom and it wouldn’t be long before some dopey gaggle of second years would enter, so you reluctantly pulled away from Fred as he started on your neck, causing him to whine in annoyance.

“Fred, unless you wanna be macking on my neck when McGonagall comes in here for her next class, I suggest we scarper.” 

Fred nodded, his hair messy and his cheeks flushed. You realised that he’d genuinely lost the ability to speak. Sniggering at the mess of a boy in front of you, you grabbed his hand and led him from the classroom, leading him out of the castle and towards the Black Lake as you had done so many times last year, but with a different goal this time.


End file.
